Ugh. Just saw a Stefan Molyneux video where he showed clips from Bill Maher’s show. Good ol’ Bill was opining that the bailouts actually worked and “we got our money back.”
Now, I usually refuse to watch network news or shows like Bill Maher’s. Is this what the cabbageheads are saying on these programs? Are people seriously trying to argue that the bailouts worked? Is this because “unemployment would have been 25% if they hadn’t bailed out Wall Street?”
Anyone who is more plugged in feel free to comment. I did a massive facepalm when I heard this. I always knew Maher was a twirp, but didn’t think he was that clueless.
It is the lack of any actual economic understanding by the media and its usual viewers that give space to such nonsense. As usual, the general uneducated population is none the wiser.
Things work (or appear to work) when artificial redistribution happens, especially on the emotional level (rich=bad, poor/middle class=victim). We unfortunately don’t know what private (productive, market-driven) jobs were destroyed from this because we don’t see them.
When bureaucrats run out of money, the media can create a scapegoat and bureaucrats can blame them.
In fiscal 2008 the US government had a cash flow deficit of $680.5 billion roughly with GDP growth (which is a false and manipulated statistic anyway) of $363.8 billion. In fiscal 2009 the cash flow deficit was $1.47 trillion (yes, with a T) and the GDP shrank by $183 billion. In the first quarter of 2010, the cash flow deficit was almost $2.5 trillion and the GDP growth was $215 billion.
Six months after QEI it was “mission accomplished”. We are now at the end of 2010, two years later, and even the most optimistic types lament “recovery is too slow”. In common English it means “We are in the middle of a Depression and there’s no easy way out”.
Most large international groups have posted record profits for the first half of 2010. Yet employment is still falling and sales are slowing down once again at 2008 pace.
During this year Euro medias bombarded us with “record growth” stories: exports have risen 23% this year, GDP growth is “much better than expected”. Yet unemployment is rising and industrial associations said that “if everything goes well” they’ll be back at pre-Depression levels by 2019. Last year they would be back at full steam by 2012.
Morale: we are being bombarded (literally) by propaganda. Its goal is to make us believe our Dear Leaders saved us from doom and, most importantly, the good times are here again and we should go out and spend, spend, spend. Mussolini instructed wartime medias to skip over news of military defeats and concentrate on individual acts of bravery or “empty shell stories”, like himself giving a magniloquent speech or a minister visiting an armament factory. Is there any difference?
Talk is cheap. The media and the so-called experts can sputter as much as they want. They failed to predict anything we are seeing right now: the failure of the Iraqi invasion, the failure of the “War on Terror”, the subprime fiasco, the 2008 quantitative easing, Obama’s fall from grace. If someone still believes them he/she is just asking for troubles.
Are these statistics manipulated, or did the Treasury really make money? Aside from the ethical/philosophical point of view, how do you defend the fact (?) that the Treasury made money to pay who support government?